A few days ago I posted a song by American musician Jeremy Messersmith called “Lazy Bones”. After hearing it one more time, I noticed something I missed the first six times I heard it*. In a part of the song’s chorus Jeremy sings a background vocal in the left channel. He sings “You’re working so hard”:

I know it’s a pretty small coincidence, and probably not worth mentioning at all, but it gave me an excuse to play you Monsignor Lennon’s “#9 Dream” which I sometimes think is my all-time favourite John Lennon song (if I’m not thinking about “Across The Universe“).

Sometimes it’s frustrating when you’re nowhere near as clever as you think.

I thought I’d made a startling discovery with today’s coincidence, but no. It’s all fully documented on Wikipedia.

Here’s the sequence of events:

1. I was listening to The Hollies‘ mammoth (6-CD) compilation, Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years: The Complete Hollies April 1963 – October 1968, enjoying it, and being reminded that this was indeed the trebliest band ever recorded.

2. Track 14 on CD 3 was a song of theirs I’d never heard before. It’s called “Stewball”. The main vocal melody sounds like this:

7. I thought that The Hollies’ “Stewball” was an original song by them. But as that Wikipedia snippet mentioned, the song is an old folk standard. Well whaddaya know?

Now that I’ve been brought back down to Earth (Reminder to self: you’re nowhere near as clever as you think you are, Smarty Pants), I’ll just sit quietly and continue listening to that Hollies compilation.